


I Get Bi With A Little Help From My Friends

by generic



Category: Thrilling Intent (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Multi, figuring out feelings, he's got a lot of love, i'd like to see you deal better with a bunch of funny competent friends after 2 decades alone
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-05
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-27 04:04:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13872738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/generic/pseuds/generic
Summary: These were friendship feelings, right? Definitely.





	I Get Bi With A Little Help From My Friends

**Author's Note:**

> watch as i shamefully over-use the ellipsis as much as possible...

Kyr Fiore was an expert on human relations; he wrote The Book on them! But even as he compiled notes and observations over the years, he’d had the pressing feeling that he was missing some vital first-hand experience.  


And then his friends came bursting into his life.  


It was over a year later, and Kyr was around people everyday, talking and eating and laughing and _living_ with them. It was great, and he was incredibly happy with his friend, but it also meant that he didn’t have nearly as much time to dedicate to his notes anymore; gone was the time where he could spend days without seeing anyone around, and he needed time to sort some things out so that he could properly update his Big Book of Human Relations.  


He wandered the Isles for a bit with his book tucked under his arm, familiar with the landscape but lost in thought, until he came to an adequately grassy spot to sit in. Kyr flipped through the pages absently, skimming over old notes.  


His first section, written in his childhood hand, was “Family!” This part actually predated when his father…disappeared. He was always curious about _everything_ and incessantly asked his father questions. How do you get a family? Why? What do families do? Who is in a family? Looking over it now, it was clear that some of the answers were purposely open-ended, trying to accommodate both a child’s understanding of the world as well as his raging curiosity, but Kyr had taken them as the final word and dutifully copied them down in blunt pencil. The last entry he’d written was years ago, shortly after his father was gone. Kyl’il had extended a hand to shoo him away and Kyr thought that she was offering a hug… She hadn’t liked that. He left quickly and wrote a reminder to not go into Kyl’il’s house without risking fire damage.  


In the back of his book was an equally neglected chapter: “Courtship! Dating! Romance!” This was filled with scribblings from Kyr’s adolescence. There had been a brief, shameful period where he thought that Dont might be pretty, but then she threw a rock-hard tart at his head (or maybe just a rock), and he decided that she was just awful. There wasn’t much written for courtship after that single failed experience, and he decided to dedicate his attentions to making friends with some of the various spirit-folk around the islands.  


Which brought him to his largest and most extensive section. “Friendship: The How’s and How-Not’s.” Carefully catalogued was every gift and interaction, with who, and what happened, marked with either a check-mark (How to make friends!) or an ‘X’ (How-Not!) There were a lot of ‘X’s, with notes underneath for improvement, written with the seemingly endless hope that he could get it right. It went on for pages and pages, about two decades’ worth of notes in a similar vein, so imagine his surprise when he’d met his friends, two of them literally crashing out of the sky like shooting stars. It was everything that he had hoped for; they were strong and funny and nice, they didn’t even really throw things! He’d been so overwhelmingly happy to find them that it felt like he’d set off fireworks inside him, but in a good way. It had taken a while to realize that they were specific to someone in particular.  


Kyr had adapted to Gregor being around very quickly, he was easy to be friends with, but even weeks later, he would look at Markus and… _wow_. It wasn’t the lingering fear that he was going to leave or disappear (not anymore); he just couldn’t wait to be around Markus and hear him talk and feel him bump his shoulder and make him smile big enough to hurt his cheeks. There was an entire page filled with everything they called each other (“buddy,” “friend,” “bro”) trying to find a word that felt big enough to hold all these fireworks.  


Ashe was different, a lot different from Markus. She was slow to warm up, but even so, she quickly stopped throwing things, and then she stopped shouting at him, and eventually she started offering smiles or a swig from her flask, and (if he was sitting down) she might give an occasional ruffle of his hair. Kyr cherished every bit of affection, but it wasn’t quite the same as his burning drive to make friends. Instead, it felt like the closer she allowed him, the bigger the feeling got. This big warm feeling in his gut to just…hug her so hard. Hug her and pet her weird soft hair and crush any of the bad things he knew she was feeling. You know, like friends do.  


He hadn’t met Thog right away, and when he did he was pretty sure he didn’t like Kyr. (Sure, Thog never sent him away, but even now he wasn’t entirely sure.) That must be why he got so _nervous_ whenever Thog was around. He looked at Kyr with the same cool efficiency that he did everything with and Kyr felt his palms get tingly and sweaty, and his words falter in his head. Obviously, it was because he was still worried that he needed to win Thog over as a friend like everyone else. Of course, he’d never had this problem with Kyl’il or any of the other spirit-folk, but that was _totally_ different. Totally different.  


It was a few months before he met Inien. By that time, he’d adjusted to having people around and it wasn’t such a surprise, but what he was struck by was how _pretty_ she was; he’d blurted it out without thinking. Then Ashe had scoffed and made some derisive comment that he didn’t hear. Inien was incredible…ly intimidating. He felt exposed in all sorts of ways that made his face heat up when she turned her sharp, lazy stares toward him. He was never sure what she was thinking or even if they were friends or not; that was probably why he felt so off-balance around her. 

. 

Kyr frowned at his notes. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. Turns out, friendship was a lot harder to figure out when there were actual people around; these notes were all over the place. 

A quick burst of wind interrupted his thoughts and ruffled loose a scrap of paper tucked into the very back pages. Kyr snatched it back, and then scoffed at his younger self when he saw what it was. A roughly drawn Dont from all those years ago. That time of his life had been short-lived, thank the gods; he hadn’t even known he kept this. He looked it over, wondering what to do with it now, and thought back to the careful attention he’d made the portrait with. It actually kind of reminded him of when he was watching Markus or Inien or…  


**“What’s that?”**  


A familiar hoarse shout interrupted his thoughts again, and his half-formed idea dissipated. Kyr looked up at the bright, expectant eyes above him.  


“Hi, Colvin. Nothing much, just some notes,” Kyr said, tossing the picture aside. Kyr liked Colvin; he was even louder than him, and smart in such a weird way that he always felt like something 

big was about to happen. He was sure that he had a bunch of notes on Colvin too, but while he was here…  


“Hey Colvin, want to help me with something?” Colvin was friends with everyone too, he would probably have some advice.  


**“Of course!”** He plopped down gracelessly directly in front of Kyr and turned his unwavering attention to him. Kyr nodded to himself before taking Colvin through all of his notes, leading up to that very day: why did he feel this way instead of that, and about this person rather than another. The whole time Colvin never turned his focused eyes away.  


Finally, Kyr stopped. “I dunno, man,” he concluded. “I just like them a lot? And it’s a lot.”  


Colvin frowned deeply. **“Ah. Truly a confounding predicament, to Like someone and decide how to proceed on the best course of action.”**  


“Don’t know why you said “Like” like that, but yeah!” Kyr leaned his head on his hand. “What do you do when you like someone?”  


**“What do _I_ do?”** Colvin asked, straightening up. **“There is a deeply respected and ancient ritual often taken as a first step of Liking someone.”**  


Oh? Some human friendship ritual he didn’t know about? Markus was pretty good about those, but maybe tieflings did things differently. “What is it?” Kyr asked, taking up his book and pencil.  


**“The first step is absolutely crucial to proceeding; you must ask the participant’s permission.”** Colvin let the sentence hang in the air, waiting.  


Kyr paused for some sort of cue, and then nodded. “Yeah, show me the ritual! I don’t want to keep having all…this.” He waved vaguely at himself and his notes and just sort of around.  


**“Excellent. Now the next step is-“** Colvin leaned forward suddenly. What was it, a headbutt? Like Markus’ mind-meld? Kyr braced himself, preparing for something weird or painful or-  


Oh. Instead, he felt something warm and firm press against his lips. A kiss. Something like a large, slow _boom_ expanded in Kyr’s chest  


A quiet moment passed, and Colvin leaned back looking satisfied.  


**“And that concludes the ritual. There are several additional steps that may be taken that are of no interest to me, but I can describe them for you-“**  


Kyr interrupted as the feeling traveled up and escaped in loud, genuine laughter. He took a breath and looked at Colvin, mouth still half-formed around his next word.  


“No, sorry. Thanks,” Kyr was still grinning. “That was great, you’re pretty great, you know that?”  


Colvin looked surprised for half a second before his face split into an enormous smile.  


**“Thank you!”** He looked exceptionally pleased.  


“Yeah, no problem man.”  


**“Have you solved your predicament?”** Colvin asked, still cross-legged on the ground while Kyr gathered up his books.  


“You know, it’s really tough to tell.” If anything, he felt like he had even more to think about. Kyr extended a hand down and grinned. “Maybe we could meet up later and talk about it some more.”  


**“I would be happy to join you on your quest for the Truth!”**  


.  


.  


They walked back to the bar in silence for a way before Kyr turned to Colvin.  


“So, when you were talking about ‘Liking’, you were talking about, like, a _crush_ right?”  


**“Ah, therein lies a linguistic puzzle, for how can such an abstract feeling have the ability to ‘crush?’ to answer this, one would have to look into the ancient mythos questioning the weight of a heart, were the root of emotion is found-“**

**Author's Note:**

> this is so incredibly self-indulgent, but like. how could kyr not have developed a crush on at least *some* of his friends?  
> also i wanted to give Kyr a nice strong bf


End file.
